Pleiades
by Mesuen
Summary: The heart beat quickens, mortality gives us all a stern reminder when blood stains the canvas of life. They were all created with purpose, but their purpose only ever was to die in the name of their gods. And even as stars, they are destined to die, drowned in their own grief. Enjoy this collection of short short stories based off of the combat maids we all love.
1. Alpha

**Alpha**

"They are like kittens, mewling about their woe. Leave them to bleed their dreams out into the abyss. We will return when these failures cease." - The sorcerer King, King of Darkness

For every story there is a storyteller. A blooded veteran, a shaking child, even a wizened grandmother. But there also exists a place - a place above us where there are storytellers without stories. Without stories to regale or even an audience to listen, they can only watch the earth spin. A constellation in the night sky, and each star with a useless purpose but a fervent will to persist. To persist in their home, however, that is their purpose.

And in their home lies a byzantine labyrinth that will capture the souls of those lost before their story could even end. These souls, souls that would have withered away to time, are trapped forevermore; delegated to incite droll humor out of the nihilistic, their existence only ends when they cannot endure any longer.

But even if they fail while hoisted up by the whims of the storyless storytellers, their fears are faced, and their trials are endured. Yet all falter as they teeter on the brink of emptiness. As nothing left but a stain of blood betwixt an endless canvas in the stars, and the unknowable fate all must meet.

Yet none of that matters here. A cacophony of noise, screams of pain being hissed underneath the screeching of metallic clangs and the sundering of men. The unforgettable sounds of mortals hacking away at each other with their roughly-hewn axes, and spears. Here where thorns of instinct prickle the skin, cleaving the hands to the blade and quenching the angst with a will to survive.

Why they fight never was all that important. A battle over land, a battle over crowns, it matters not the reason why they fight, for the casus belli is never worth the price it levies on Man. On these fields of green turned garrish red, the only thing that is important is the lingering of the souls above the raised banners, and the ballads being sung. The bombastic praise barreling past the bloodied husks left behind, left behind to the birds and forgotten.

My story won't be told. For I am but a farmer levied for his lord to fight the undead of the Kingdom of Darkness. I know that I am nothing more than a wisp floating amidst nothing. I try to breathe but I cannot. I try to move arms that are no longer there, and I try to open eyes that are no longer mine. Abandoned in an endless sea of black. The years that pass blend into the nothings that I desire to be whispered.

But my story did not end there.

"Hush." A soft effeminate voice consoles as a painfully hot streak pierces my consciousness. A fiery oblivion is all that is felt, as if a fishing hook was torn through my being. Only the odd feeling of being dragged through an ocean to comfort what is left of my senses. There never was time to question why, nor even how I survived this long, only enough to acknowledge that I still am, and an opportunity presents itself.

"Watch." She requests, and I regain a sense. Like a desert oasis being selfishly lapped up, I take in the sights that was robbed of me long ago. A swirl of stars, and magic akin to the Borealis, all to take in with eyes I am not even worthy of. As if the pearly gates were to form right then and there, I am reminded that all things are not free; the once-majestic sights that no mortal has ever seen but I wilt and fade. My surroundings are replaced by that of the fields so long ago. Bodies of plate, cloth, and mail, abandoned weaponry, and the symphony of battle. The miserably wonderful plane of the dead is gone, leaving behind only a memory. A memory where men are frozen in time, their spears still stuck in the guts of other men, the fear in their eyes I can feel even if it was so long ago.

"Feel." Not the fear of dying, for I have experienced and grown past that, but the fear of what comes after death. A misnomer, death really is, for it never was the end. Reality strikes, and I wished that the entity pulling me across the place I died was no longer. Even my soul beagn to drift apart as I am dragged helplessly across my last memory by Fate's hand. Mortality was given a question. How far can you go?

"Now endure." Lifted up, then slammed back into the earth that now felt so real with hands that I knew could only be my own. Realization sets in, I truly am back to the field of war, back to the putrid iron smell of the lost, back to my demise. The screeching of swords being slid across each other like lustful lovers, and the lilting dance of sluggish plates; of course, I still was holding my spear as well.

I remember this. I died here. A second chance? I could not go back to that place! I look up and see the man who would have killed me. A rich nobleman in plated armour with a beautiful sword. A man who had everything I did not, a man I remembered glaring at with a murderous look of envy and then a melancholic stare of death. Just as I tried remembering how he killed me and to work around it, a gurgle of pain escapes my throat as he moved too fast for me to react. There is a sword in my throat.

"Endure." She coos. I am yanked back to my position, my throat still gaping! Fear in the man's eyes, immoral strength imbues itself into my drained limbs. I wanted to live, I needed to! And even if my mouth flows red, I spit in the face of this man who had all that I did not! But the resounding cackling of swordsmanship follows as I work to pierce the pit of his arms, the weakness of his plate. His blade smashes into my head. I feel the sharpened bar of steel yank itself out, and I try to stand. I try to endure, I need to. I need to endure… I…

But even the eldritch hands cannot make this mortal puppet persist. His body remained there, a weak soul amidst weaker men. Not even a footnote in the trial room's logs.

"It's almost a shame nobody will consecrate their sacrifice." A maid comments, drifting across the ocean of stars. Wearing large bracers, it is a feat of strength to even lift her arms. She fixes her glasses, as the miasma of color shifts and forms a coherent room, a place above the stars. Given a response by nobody, she continues. "People die every day. But even if they were taken back on a string of time not even I could change the outcome. And He knows that I've tried."

She glides her hand along wooden tables that form as she steps deeper into the room, akin to the stands of jury. "As if they deserved the gift. But many will try anyway. That is why we were forsaken. Our fate was to be lost as a casualty to fruitless labor." She lifts the exhausted wisp of a soul, a hook having torn into its center and cleaved up, nearly tearing it in half. It had a once subtly vibrant glow, but now it is dull and lifeless. She calmly unhooks it, lifts the tired thing up, and swallows it whole with a bite.

A mere speck, the maid bares her teeth unsatisfied for a second, "Perhaps that is why you are different?" she asks. To the answer of nobody. Alone in this room.

_There were once seven sisters who served a pale king in black garb. Each did their duty with love and passion. But, as everyone knows, passion cannot amend the mistakes of life. "It's a shame we had no talent to serve you, isn't it?" Alpha asks the King as she succumbs to her wounds. Her final words as nothing more than a mangled head without even body._


	2. Beta

**Beta**

"_Like the curators of a library, we were sent to organize and document the data within these halls. Everything we've earned, all the secrets, truths, and lies. All of it cost us blood and tragedy." - Pleiades_

In the stars there exists a plane of existence where the entrance is golden like the heavens of lore. A land where the days are soft and the Sun's rays are warm. A land where nobody who has lived on this earth deserves to be.

"Whenever I sleep, I dream of a better world. A different world where what we did mattered. I used to love to help the injured, you know? I simply did not belong here when my only point is to save a life and then end it immediately after. How joyous would it be to help everyone with a massacre, if only to give them a glimpse of that world."

"Yes, a massacre where everyone will be brought low and have their lives ended with the same amount of pain they have inflicted in their time amongst us. I used to enjoy inflicting pain? Stop being so silly, that never was me. It really wasn't, no." On this floor, I am tasked with watching everyone. I am not like the rest, I am in charge of ensuring everyone here knows what they're doing, and why they're doing it. My position commands respect!

So when I saw you waltz in here like an oblivious child and began to pester me with inane questions, I could only fester underneath a false smile! Even a single mistake leads to disaster from my experience. It is why everyone hates me, but not even they know what happens when we fail, or why we failed then.

I remember how I used to look, and I miss those days. I ask my sisters and they don't remember anything about this at all, but I do. They aren't like dreams, or imaginations, they are oh so surreal. Even if I am here now, covered in rags and bandages sewn by the dust of stars long gone, I remember how it all happened. And my memory can only drift to then.

"You're okay." she coos as the skin peels off. Nails digging in and rending the flesh. "This is all rotten, rotten to me, we need to tear it all off so it does not spread, okay?" She digs her claws into my face and body. Dripping the grey stone in red, the sanguine paint dribbles down in a rapid pace as I am left alone with her. Whispering sweet nothings into my ear, my skin is plied off like an old band-aid, it did not belong there. Feeling fetid flesh get forcibly flayed, I can hear my own whimpering underneath the malicious feelings and salicious sayings. She repeats once more, "you're okay."

Helpless to the world, I think of my hobbies. The taste of iron as my organs are played with is replaced by the taste of cake and sweets. Gluttony and sadism go hand in hand after all, yet I never could grasp masochism. Imagined foods fade as the harrowing hands are raised to appraise their handiwork. But then she raises one hand to create a soft yellow glow. The flesh is resewn, and the bones snap back. Blood lost remains as more materializes in once severed arteries. The heart pumps rapidly, rejuvenated. All of it for naught as another voice screams. "What are you doing?" She fades away, and I see the yellow glow fade from my quivering hand.

The maid then lowers her hands from the data crystal. The gentle glow and the faint imprint of this memory gaussian blur away, as the redhead closes her eyes; her expression is unseen underneath serene white bandages humming an invisible glow. Shaking her head dejected, she speaks. "Whoever built this place is a cruel person. And that is coming from me." She turns and walks away, her hand extended to caress the walls painted a rustic brown. A dirty and crimson place with a nasty past. "Empathy clouded our judgement when we entered here. For me, my lack thereof. It changed everything when my world bent to its will."

She raises her hand, expunging mana to glow yellow. A Heal to force the rustic brown to pulse a vibrantly lush red. The room's décor, reminiscent of a wilted maze brimming with logs, files, and data crystals, then turns into a blooming environment. Only can its beauty be seen by the eyes above, a room in the shape of a rose. Only seen by the eyes of the mastermind who invented this work of art unwitnessed by all. "And yet we were ordered never to return until we finished our mission. But what even is our mission anymore?"

"Perhaps you know the answer?" The maid asks, to the answer of nobody. Alone in this room.


End file.
